ILX BOOKS OF THE 00s: THE RESULTS! (or: Ismael compiles his reading list, 2010-2019)

there are other things to look for than 'literature' when picking up a book, i suppose?

Yeah, I think it's this that made me think of the rockist argument... but then, I'm not sure what there could be that I wouldn't think was an aspect of 'great literature' that would make me pick up a book... Surely plot would come under that, even if it is not the same as deft word construction (the latter of which I appear to be seriously lacking this afternoon). So if it is great plotting that makes fantasy appealing, then is the answer 'yeah! of course it's as good as Updike/Faulks/etc'?

though i take your point that great 'writing' without a story is probably a lot better than a great story told by a terrible writer- if that's your point!

but to answer your actual question the fantasy books so far are mainly in it for the story/plotting, while being a lot better than the vast majority of the genre in terms of the writing quality to get you through those plots.

While inquiring minds are inquiring then, does the best new Fantasy stuff tend to be have more depth or nuance in the kinds of worlds it takes place in than ye olde sub-Tolkein guys? I mean is it goodies yay vs baddies boo or is there the kind of moral ambiguity going on that you'd expect to find in good espionage or detective fiction?

It's true that he can't match up to The Line of Beauty, though to be fair very few books can.

on the basis of this line I have made my first purchase based on this thread, as I had seen The Line of Beauty (hardcover) hanging around in Poundland for months and continually forgot to find out anything about it, but that there is quite enough to sell me. Maybe not the greatest leap into the beyond at £1, but heyyy it's something.

Even in my geeky teens I had no taste for fantasy (despite the SHROVES of awful sci-fi I read), so I'm guessing by this point I'm destined to never be a fan.

huh I had no idea it won the Booker Prize. I truly don't know shit about shit.

xp is there the kind of moral ambiguity going on that you'd expect to find in good espionage or detective fiction?

certainly, it's there if you want it. but there's another thread that lists the best out there for this kind of thing, "fantasy is my favourite genre why is it so bad and hated" or something like.

heh i've dallied with reading other genres but tbh since i was 8 i read hardly anything but fantasy.

I had never heard of this writer. A glance at Amazon turns up this review. It made me laugh.

(worth noting that i don't actually rep that hard for erikson as i'm only halfway through bk 2 of 35 atm)

but (again) the prince of nothing series by r scott bakker (if the name doesn't put you off) is something i've been trying to get people to read.

I'm not sure what there could be that I wouldn't think was an aspect of 'great literature' that would make me pick up a book

Dunno, I think 'literary' & 'great literature' are tangled, but tend to be used more narrowly than this implies - in the modern novel, a few of the following tend to be there: psychological sophistication, irony, moral ambiguity, individual connected to large-scale historical events/zeitgeist, self-conscious style. That kind of thing.

Pedal-to-metal can't-put-it-down narrative & narrative immersion aren't really on that list; a writer who specialises in that usually takes years/decades to be accepted as actually ok, and even then there's a bit of sniffiness (thinking of Stephen King). Fantasy's also disadvantaged because pure invention isn't admired; the 'literary' tends to adhere a bit more closely to this world.

The 'literary' category is maybe shifting a bit, so SF has an easier time slipping through than it did 20 years ago; but I think bookshops, newspapers, publishers are all quite tied to it.

Just trying to describe this by the way, rather than judge; literary realism bores me rigid, & I tend to like fiction that pumps up style or invention or formal fun or ideas or whatever (so I fell for Black Swan Green partly because it was playing strange Romantic tricks - gypsies, doubles, poets - beneath the surface of conventional psychologically rounded realism).

Fantasy's also disadvantaged because pure invention isn't admired; the 'literary' tends to adhere a bit more closely to this world

conversely, gimmickery or characters acting unrealistically bothers me much more in a supposed 'real world' setting where i'm trying to imagine it as something that could happen- in fantasy, i don't mind dudes wrestling dragons because the whole world is a suspension of disbelief, so i can't be jarred out of it by false notes.

I'm on the popist* side, as you may have picked up from my unsuccessful attempts to get The Kite Runner and Angels and Demons nominated. Plot, with character, is definitely the most important part of any book. Of course it's nice if all the other stuff you mention is there too - but if it's not then I'm not going to lionise McEwan, say, for his themes or style if the stories are rubbish. Give me Faulks or whoever any day**

The basic problem which I have with SciFi/fantasy is that, cut loose from the real world, it's easy to let the characters drift away from being real people with real (by which I mean my) concerns. Which then in turn stops the plots making sense to me. That's why it's interesting to me to hear the comments above on Banks or Towers (that viking story is fantasy, right?) - it makes it sound like they have made the much greater effort to create a reality to ground their stories in.

*at least I think I am, but often I think I've misunderstood this debate entirely
** I say that, but I suspect my real reading list is probably pretty pseudish

tell you what though, i've changed my mind and decided my vote would have been for the fantastic "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" which is an amazing mix austen, historical fiction, fantasy and fairytale, told brilliantly. note perfect.

My first reaction to that was o_0 but I guess I'm totally not a fantasy person - do you guys who are into it actually think these books are up there with the best literature, or is it more a case of giving props to your own corner of the book world?

this is hard to answer but tbh im probably the 1 resp for most of the fantasy shit placing so ill give it a shot.

a) fantasy (and sci fi) have had a lot to do w/how i discovered reading and with how i view lit in general. the stuff that got me into reading (tolkein, jordan, eddings) had a lot to do with forming the things i value in a book and thats stayed w/ me

b) i read a lot of fantasy and i think, in making a list like this, that that deserves acknowledging

c) fantasy generally feels like its ~important~ in the larger context - like its values and tropes have really effectively permeated others books and movies and tv this decade and i guess i rate authors who have been at the vanguard (lol) of defining and redefining those values and tropes

d) i think if your judging fantasy - partic epic fantasy - u have to judge the work on its own terms which are largely different from the way u wld read and understand modern "literary" fiction. erikson has an mfa from a p prestigious program - presumably he can write better sentences then he does - but epic fantasy isnt really abt "good writing". realize im not really explicating these "terms" but generally certain aspects of plot and "world-building" are impt in ways they will never be in any other genre

e) have a whole thing abt cognition and the reader but basic i dont think losing yrself in books abt magics and dragons is automatically less interesting and worthwhile than immersing yourself in the solipsism and faggy neuroses of brainy english majors.

cliffs: i "actually" think sum of these books rank amongst the best books of the decade because i value the things they do well and can forgive or dont care abt the things they do poorly

this is interesting, but what I really want to know now is if there are any books about the solipsism and faggy neuroses of dragons.

lamp = hero

richard morgans "the steel remains" is (kinda) abt the solipsism and faggy neuroses of magic elves

peter jackson's LOTR movies are all about faggy elves tbh, watch them instead

fwiw i read scifi 'cause i love the idea of spaceships and the future n shit

sheesh, at least dragons were real once

The dragon in Grendel is all that

75. The Whole Equation - David Thomson (2005)
(31 points, two votes)

http://www.hankstuever.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/thomsoncover-205x300.jpg

David Thomson: Classic or Well-dressed?

I'm around 100 pages into his new book, The Whole Equation, and it's way denser than it has any right to be. I guess it might be good? But I don't think I'm ever going to find out, due to the ease of finding a much higher return on my time for both information and entertainment elsewhere.
― andrew s (andrew s), Saturday, March 5, 2005 2:38 AM (4 years ago)

I got David Thomson's 'The Whole Equation'. Finish it tonight and its amazing but also getting prepared for its annoying conclusion, as I imagine it - its the end of cinema as the movies can't give him that communal feel that he had with others when he started going to the movies (just after WWII ended) anymore. Its a gd ol' follow the money history but plenty of judgement, biographical sketches, experiences and so on.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, June 19, 2007 5:48 PM (2 years ago)

Much prefer Thomson in bite size chunks. I tried reading 'The Whole Equation' but gave up after about 40 pages, his style's a bit too dense and rich for me in a tome that size. If I'd been able to nominate more I would have nominated 'Have You Seen' and his 'New Biographical Dictionary of Film' which says what he wants to more succintly and more effectively.

It's quite a bold cover. But whenever I buy things that look like The Face, I always mentally file them under 'not really for reading'.

speaking of bold covers...

74. What's Left? - Nick Cohen (2007)
(31 points, three votes)

http://www.document.no/2007/01/26/nickcohen.jpg

Ismael Klata:
Study of how (certain parts of) the left keeps getting itself in trouble. It sees what it likes, works it into an ideology to cheer for - then does stupider and stupider things trying to support that ideology, until eventually it ends up supporting the opposite of what it liked in the first place. This decade being a good leftist turned into supporting fascism, dictatorship and theocracy. It's a great read, and would've been funny if it weren't so serious and sad.

Red Raymaker:
A very much needed critical apprisal of what's gone wrong with left wing politics in recent years and its flirtation with the politics of the extreme right. The fact it was written by a man of the left makes it all the more interesting and persuasive. A fascinating read, articulating what has been self evident for quite some time.

Come back fantasy genre fiction all is forgiven.

Is no liberal pundit free from ilx ire? So what are Cohen's problems then.

Apart from enthusiastically banging the drum for the invasion of Iraq and comparing opponents on the left to appeasers of the Nazis, you mean?

Fair enough. I don't keep up with this stuff very much tbh.

I had a quick search for him in the archives, couldn't find a single positive quote.

And I'm a fan, obviously. I'd've put one up for humour value, but they tend to be, uh, punchy.

My first reaction to that was o_0 but I guess I'm totally not a fantasy person - do you guys who are into it actually think these books are up there with the best literature, or is it more a case of giving props to your own corner of the book world?

eh well the list isn't called ILX MOST BESTEST LITERATUREST BOOKS OF THE 00s y'know? more of my ballot is for neuroses-of-young-iowa-grads stuff than was for genre picks i guess, but i didn't vote for the on-average 'best' 8000 pages of writing i read from this decade, it's kind of a mix of 'i think this is objectively good' 'i really enjoyed this' 'i think this is culturally relevant'

& i think you can pick standards by which you can talk about erikson and martin being 'objectively good'. i mean, i'm sure that redraymaker's diving guide is a pretty good diving guide. i'm never going to read it because it sounds terrifying, mind.

of course you can define 'up there with the best' and 'objectively good' a whole bunch of ways, and i could kind of cosign most of lamp's points. i mean, i guess my question is "in what sense 'up with the best'"

want to know who the other voter for memories of ice is though.

erikson has an mfa from a p prestigious program - presumably he can write better sentences then he does

^ this is pretty fascinating! actually otoh there was this whole internet thing not long ago lately about how apparently david foster wallace and dan brown went to the same mfa, so er y'know

I'm on the popist* side, as you may have picked up from my unsuccessful attempts to get The Kite Runner and Angels and Demons nominated. Plot, with character, is definitely the most important part of any book. Of course it's nice if all the other stuff you mention is there too - but if it's not then I'm not going to lionise McEwan, say, for his themes or style if the stories are rubbish. Give me Faulks or whoever any day**

The basic problem which I have with SciFi/fantasy is that, cut loose from the real world, it's easy to let the characters drift away from being real people with real (by which I mean my) concerns. Which then in turn stops the plots making sense to me. That's why it's interesting to me to hear the comments above on Banks or Towers (that viking story is fantasy, right?) - it makes it sound like they have made the much greater effort to create a reality to ground their stories in.

otoh i don't really care about characters being 'real people with real concerns' so much as i care about them being, er, generative of interesting sentences and of interesting shapes for plots? -- but 'creating a reality to ground their stories in' is a massive part of what people who care about fantasy novels care about in what they read - qv. 'world-building' 'subcreation' etc.

I voted for the Erikson. I don't really make genre distinctions when it comes to what I value - my enjoyment is my guide. So sci-fi, fantasy, literary fiction, mysteries, whatever - it's just a different set of tropes to hang ideas on.

thomp's point reminds me of an Edmund Crispin (Bruce Montgomery) novel

At one point Gervaise Fen comes across a crime writer testing out the practicalities of a scene in a local field. Fen suggests that doing this must enable him to some extent to get ‘inside the mind of the murderer’.

An expression of mild repugnance appeared on the man’s face. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, it doesn’t do that.’ That subject seemed painful to him, and Fen felt that he had committed an indiscretion. ‘The fact is,’ the man went on, ‘that I have no interest in the minds of murderers, or for that matter,’ he added rather wildly, ‘in the minds of anyone else.’ Characterization seems to me a very overrated element in fiction. I can never see why one should be obliged to have any of it at all, if one doesn’t want to. It limits the form so.’

Really enjoying this thread by the way, although unlike woof, no matter what the No 1 is, I'm going to investigate these breast elves.

73. The Creation Records Story: My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize - David Cavanagh (2001)
(32 points, four votes)

http://www.creation-records.com/blog/playlists/philwilson_playlist.jpg

dismissed by Alan McGee as 'the accountant's story', which just goes to show how bad his judgement is these days. Obsessively researched, it's a kind of elegy for a time when indie labels could hope for something more than cottage industry and vanity releases. At least 10 cracking Lawrence-from-Felt anecdotes, too.
― Stevie T, Monday, December 4, 2000 1:00 AM (9 years ago)

the beginning section (detailing the aftermath of punk rock & such) is quite interesting. The more McGee & Co. become entangled in the music biz, the less interesting the book becomes. By the time Oasis hits, it's a dull melange of A&R people and publicists and major label knobheads rolling in the dough.
It simply tells a story. The funny thing is, it's not really McGee's story. Cavanaugh writes it more like a Forrest Gump tale, where McGee is walking through history (in this case, the development of the current British music scene), and just HAPPENS to make millions of bucks and just HAPPENS to be smack-dab in the middle of it.
... Cavanagh simply tells it like it is; the drug use (of which there is an abundance) gets treated with the same importance as the label signings ... I definitely think it's a fine book about the UK indie scene. Just don't expect much about Alan McGee. And, personally, I'm very grateful that Oasis didn't show up for 400+ pages. Reading about the House of Love's drug issues is vastly more entertaining. And intelligible.
― David Raposa, Tuesday, May 15, 2001 12:00 AM (8 years ago)

Certainly not concise and definitely not value neutral, but as a history of the label, and indeed of post punk indie I don't think you can beat David Cavanagh's My magpie eyes are hungry for the prize.
No doubt some ILxer's (Momus/Jerry T) have their own view but I think this is going to be as good as you get for the time being.
― Billy Dods, Saturday, December 22, 2001 1:00 AM (8 years ago)

The Creation Records Story: My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize by David Cavanagh is fascinating, but only if you have any interest in 80s british indie.
― Nicole (Nicole), Tuesday, January 21, 2003 3:00 PM (6 years ago)

It's a pretty good social study all around, though.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, January 21, 2003 4:30 PM (6 years ago)

72. Nothing - Paul Morley (2000)
(33 points, two votes)

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:hLy1LVD8JEtEJM:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_C-e81HBNKFw/SobgtoQ_rCI/AAAAAAAAAPo/M8iS1nhW8-A/s320/41XSZ749SKL._SS500_.jpg

Nothing by Paul Morley

If this is the one about his father committing suicide, I got it out of the library but didn't read more than a couple of pages. I was worried that it might be a bit bleak.
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, July 11, 2003 7:54 AM (6 years ago)

You ought to give it another try, PJ. The Pinefox and I were discussing 'Nothing' last weekend, and such was the PF's pleasure in the book that I was moved to reread it. Happily, it is even better than I remember. There is an emotional current to the book that focuses his more abstract meanderings and adjectival pile-ups - the kind of thing that often puts people off his writing. Also: it's very funny.
I often wonder why a writer like Morley shouldn't have the status in the pop world that, say, David Thomson does in film - as a world respected writer and critic, commissioned for extended features in the Sunday Supplements and op-ed pages.
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, July 11, 2003 8:48 AM (6 years ago)

there is plainly nothing of worth by Paul Morley that you can recommend me.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, January 14, 2003 4:37 PM (7 years ago)

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2009/12/23/1261566866792/morley-nyman-mcalmont-005.jpg

That came out too small again, but this is nice.

I haven't read Erikson - and like possibly several ILXors I became confused when I got the impression that Steve Erickson had started writing epic fantasy novels.

The only contemporary fantasy I really stan for is Robert Jordan (not a nominee) which is a hangover from my youth, but when I've tried to explain to skeptics what I like about him the half-hearted attempts at arguments I've made probably apply to a lot of (the better) fantasy, namely:

While an absolute emphasis on realism now seems to be pretty rare in modern lit crit or its more popular variants (e.g. newspaper book reviews) I think instead there's quite a strong judgmental binary between realism and playing-with-form, such that what counts as good writing often has to slot into either (or sometimes both) of those categories, an opposition which stuff like "magic realism" really only papers over. It's not so much that this restricts what kinds of stories can be told, but rather it defines the contexts in which particular kinds of achievements can be recognised as such.

Jordan is (was) probably the most sophisticated "plotter" of any writer I've read in terms of the dizzying interplay of characters, twists, narrative arcs etc. but because the actual writing style is fairly conventional, this can never be celebrated as such, it's defined as being soap opera-ish (which it is) or even decadent b/c fantasy just isn't supposed to try for complexity; while at the same time a "merely" complex plot isn't enough by itself to impressive in a non-fantasy context. It would be different if he had been constructing a social realist drama or if he'd been playing with literary convention (or both!) both of which provide a more respectable framework in which the complexity of the plot would become at least for some critics a point in its favour. I mean it's pretty obvious why new wave SF of the 70s and 80s gets a lot of critical support whereas fantasy does not - it ticks so many more of the boxes that exist for good non-SF writing. To be fair, figures like Dick and Ballard and Gibson are just all around better and more interesting writers than most prominent fantasy writers, but that doesn't mean the cards aren't also stacked against the latter group in terms of achieving recognition when they are doing good or interesting work.

I think "we" are much better at recognising how populist and/or middlebrow techniques can be inventive and effective in the context of television shows or, obviously, music, than we are with writing.

I totally avoided this thread because I assumed it was fiction only. D'oh! So a moment of silence for Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics.

Man I'm sad that that Aira book placed so low. It's really excellent as are his others.

Plot, with character, is definitely the most important part of any book.

Very much not obvious or even uncontroversial. I don't know if there's a sensible way to argue about this point, but just know that lots of people feel otherwise.

pretty sure there was an implied 'for me' there ~

71. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
(33 points, four votes)

http://manolomen.com/images/Malcolm%20Gladwell%20for%20Harry%20Rosen.gif

LBS:
Brilliant insights into human nature

Malcolm Gladwell C/D S/D

I read the marketing inspirational book, The Tipping Point. I found some of the social science studies discussed and some of the anecdotes interesting, though in many cases I didn't see how exactly they supported the author's overall thesis; but then, I'd have a hard time saying exactly what that theses was.
― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, December 1, 2002 8:40 PM (7 years ago)

Thought this would land higher, just by virtue of everybody having read it.

This book is a brilliant success by the way.

aye, that was a good book too. i'd like to see a photo of gladwell with his hair straightened though - it would probably reach to the middle of his back.

i think gladwell has received a bit of unfair criticism on the blog thus far. i reckon his ideas are pretty interesting even if i don't agree with every single detail of them. and he writes in such an engaging, clear and interesting way.

likewise, i think Freakonomics and Mumbo-Jumbo were singled out for a bit too much criticism. I thought all of these books were pretty good.

incidentally, I opted to start de Lillo's "Underworld" rather than Bellow's "Augie March". I think I made the right choice. I just finished the prologue and I absolutely loved de Lillo's depiction of the baseball game in New York in the 1940s - the descriptions of all the different clusters of players, fans, commentators etc. A real highlight of my week so far!

It was interesting looking for quotes about this in the Archives - very little from 2001/2, then it finally seems to take off in 2005 or so.

70. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
(33 points, four votes)

http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/author_malcolmfotoveebis.jpg

Seek: this New Yorker piece on Ivy League admissions
Destroy: Blink, which is admirable only because he manages to keep up analysis at the level of Peter Sellers in Being There for a whole book.
Taken together, these literatures demonstrate the importance of unconscious cognition, but their findings are obscured rather than elucidated by Gladwell's parade of poorly understood yarns. He wants to tell stories rather than to analyze a phenomenon. He tells them well enough, if you can stand the style. (Blink is written like a book intended for people who do not read books.)
― Mike W (caek), Saturday, February 11, 2006 3:02 PM (3 years ago)

Search: "Big and Bad", "Group Think", quite a few other New Yorker pieces, and especially "The Pitchman"
Destroy: The books. I agree with coleman. I think he's more skilled as a short-piece writer. It's not that the books aren't good - I enjoyed both of them quite a bit - but I find that they get really repetitive in the second half. Oh, and also destroy his comments about The Streets.
I'd say classic overall; very skilled writer, tells great stories.
(full disclosure: I may be biased - he's from my hometown, I've met him, and I worked for his father for years...)
― jackl (jackl), Saturday, February 11, 2006 4:20 PM (3 years ago)

The story of Kenna's big-name supporters, test marketing, and ultimate lack of record sales is covered by a whole chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, titled "The Kenna Dilemma."
― gr8080, Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:21 PM (2 years ago)